FCW on Win 11 console, washed out colors.

[Dirk]

FCW colors in Win 11 console are washed out in the file panels but also
syntax highlighting in the editor looks awful.

See Win 10 and Win 11 screenshots to compare.

Has anyone found a solution for this?

Dirk

[xhajt03]

Wed 10. 12. 2025 at 11:58 Dirk <dirk.st...@gmail.com> wrote:


Hello Dirk,

First, I assume that you already tried modifying the colours using
Options -> Colours and saved the ini file afterwards using Shift-F9 or
Options -> Save setup? Second, you should make sure that you either
start fcw.exe in the directory where your fcw.ini is stored (e.g.
using the shortcut specifying the start directory, or within fcw.cmd
if you prefer starting FC/W from the command line), or that you
specify fcw.ini location as a parameter.

And to answer your question explicitly - yes, my FC/W colours are more
resembling those from your first picture than those from your second
picture. Those on the second picture seem to be the default ones if
FC/W doesn't find an ini file on its start.

Tomas

[Dirk]

On 10-12-2025 12:30, xhajt03 wrote:
>
> First, I assume that you already tried modifying the colours using
> Options -> Colours and saved the ini file afterwards using Shift-F9
> or Options -> Save setup? Second, you should make sure that you
> either start fcw.exe in the directory where your fcw.ini is stored
> (e.g. using the shortcut specifying the start directory, or within
> fcw.cmd if you prefer starting FC/W from the command line), or that
> you specify fcw.ini location as a parameter.
>
> And to answer your question explicitly - yes, my FC/W colours are
> more resembling those from your first picture than those from your
> second picture. Those on the second picture seem to be the default
> ones if FC/W doesn't find an ini file on its start.

FC is using the fcw.ini for sure. Al defined colours in the [Colours]
section are visible as the colours from fcwsyntax.ini are. It is just
that de colour palette is wrong.

Fixing the console colour palette with a .reg file as with Win10 when
Microsoft changed it in the past did not work.

Where the colours can be made classic in Win11 is terminal but that
thing is unsuitable for FCW.

[xhajt03]

I _do_ have the "classic" colours in FC/W under Win11. If you go to
Properties of the console window and select the Colours tab, you can
check the RGB parameters of the individual colours on the paletter -
e.g. adjust the second colour (dark blue) to 0/0/128. I probably
modified properties of the FC/W shortcut accordingly long time ago
(and kept that shortcut during reinstallations, etc.) and thus forgot
about that. If I start cmd.exe from the start menu and run fcw.exe
from there, it indeed uses a different palette - that's what confused
me.

Tomas

[Dirk]

On 10-12-2025 14:24, xhajt03 wrote:

> I _do_ have the "classic" colours in FC/W under Win11. If you go to
> Properties of the console window and select the Colours tab, you can
> check the RGB parameters of the individual colours on the paletter -
> e.g. adjust the second colour (dark blue) to 0/0/128. I probably
> modified properties of the FC/W shortcut accordingly long time ago
> (and kept that shortcut during reinstallations, etc.) and thus
> forgot about that. If I start cmd.exe from the start menu and run
> fcw.exe from there, it indeed uses a different palette - that's what
> confused me.

Ok, that sound promising. I don't have Win11 here at the moment but will
look at it asap. Thank you.

Dirk

[Dirk]

On 10-12-2025 14:24, xhajt03 wrote:

> I _do_ have the "classic" colours in FC/W under Win11. If you go to
> Properties of the console window and select the Colours tab, you can
> check the RGB parameters of the individual colours on the paletter -
> e.g. adjust the second colour (dark blue) to 0/0/128. I probably
> modified properties of the FC/W shortcut accordingly long time ago
> (and kept that shortcut during reinstallations, etc.) and thus
> forgot about that. If I start cmd.exe from the start menu and run
> fcw.exe from there, it indeed uses a different palette - that's what
> confused me.

For test I installed Win11 in a VM and this works!
Never thought of that.

Again, thanks!

Dirk